Help. Advice for a non sleeping 2yo please.

[PavlovtheCat]

I can't even think of a decent title.
DS wakes at 4:45am-5am. I have been so exhausted. I have been co-sleeping this early to help me get some sleep.

He has started waking in the night, sometimes 11:30pm, sometimes earlier, sometimes later.

DS woke last night at 12:15am. I tried controlled crying as a last resort last night as I just can't take this any more.

I did not work. Not that it took a very long time. It just did not work. I did 2/5/10/15/25/20/45. then I just left him crying (and cried myself). He screamed and cried and screamed and cried and asked for cbeebies and fireman sam and shouted that he needed me over and over and over. he stopped for 30 seconds while celebrating the fact he managed to turn his light on, but other than that, the crying was relentless. I understand that it takes several days to make a difference with any kind of sleep training but this did not take a long time first time. it simply did not work

Until 3am. When I spent 20 mins stroking his hair singing to him.

Then he woke up at 4:45am. For the day.

This is the only way to get him to sleep and he won't stay asleep like this anymore without us doing this to get him back to sleep.

He goes to bed fine. He has a routine, sometimes he will cry for 5 mins after we put him to bed but he is usually awake. So it is not that he cannot put himself to sleep as he can.

He has been ill this week but is ok now, bit snotty but nothing that should be disturbing him like this.

DH has started a new job (month or so ago) and DS goes to childminders 3 times a week and has been great there, enjoying himself but I guess it cannot have no impact whatsoever, this change in routine.

I guess we need to get back to square one with the sleep training and we do not know where to start.

Please be gentle and not judge (out loud at least!), I am looking for some real and practical advice about how to get DS sleeping through again as I have lost perspective and cannot think about how to do it (and maybe some virtual cofee as we are out of milk).

bump

Hiya,
Hope things are a bit better today. Although dd is a bit younger than your ds, a friend of mine has a 2 yr old who has been a great sleeper but started to scream at bedtime (coinciding with the arrival of a baby brother!) so it maybe that 2 is a big developmental leap or something?
does your ds still nap in the day? early waking sometimes linked to daytime sleep and I guess it could impact on night waking too.
I think have a look at daytime naps first then once that's ruled out, decide on how to deal with the night wakings and stick to it for at least a week and see if there's any improvement...
hth
xx

Try an earlier bedtime? DS was always a good sleeper and then when he was 3 DD arrived and over the summer we drifted into later and later bedtimes and I think he was just getting chronically tired,s o never getting into a really deep sleep. He'd wake as much as 4 times during the night and up for the day at 6 or earlier.
We started putting him down muuuuch earlier (7.30 instead of nearly 9) and got a grocclock and rewarded him staying in bed with a sticker. We had to set the groclock too early at first so that it'd be on whn he woke at 6 and we could say "oh wow, DS you waited for the sun to come up" and gave him a sticker. Cos he always went back to sleep straight away when waking we just concentrated on the early waking for stickers IYSWIM, so even if he'd woken briefly at 12, 3 and 4..if he stayed in bed til the groclock went off he'd get a sticker. Once he'd got the idea he'd get a sticker we started moving it slightly later. It took weeks but now we're back to he's goes down at 8pm..sleeps all night and wakes at 7am ish. He doesn't keep getting out of bed for an hour or more when put down, which was a problem before too.
It's hard though..really hard. My sympathies.

Can you sleep with him for a few nights. To give you (and him) some rest and energy to start from scratch. I think you're going to need a bit of rest before you have the strength and presence of mind to know what's going to best/. what's working for him. My kids wake and come into my bed every night. Dd is just growing out of (aged 3), but her twin brother comes about midnight and stays for rest of night. I don't mind really. It's up to you, but for my sanity, this is what I choose. I'm sure he won't do it at 5! Once they go to school, they're exhausted and sleep all night (judging by ds1).

Could it be his last set of molars bothering him? My DD sleeps terribly when teeth are coming, but it took me a long time to make the connection as there were no other symptoms.

I also think that with controlled crying, using it as a last resort really won't work because by that point you're both too wound up. If you decide that's the way forward for you, you need to do it from the moment he wakes and be firm and convinced in your own mind that it's what you want to do. Otherwise (as you found out) you both end up getting distressed by it, and it doesn't work.

Ok there are lots of ways of looking at this. The first thing to remember is this is just another phase and although it feels like it is lasting for ages it will get better. My dd was a nightime waker and would scream for milk in a sippy cup and then would want to come into our bed. We tried diluting the milk with water but that did not cut the mustard and after speaking with the dentist we decided to carry on with the normal milk. As for her wanting to come into our bed my dh was not getting any sleep so I decided that she could only come into our room if she slept on the carpet next to the bed. She would just come in the night with her duvet, cuddle down and go to sleep. We got our sleep and so did she and i was pretty desperate at this stage. When we moved house she came into our room the first night and wanted to come into our bed, i told her no that she knew the rules, so she laid down on the floor and decided that she did not like it there and went back to her bed.People will be quick to judge but my view was to do what got everyone sleep and I knew that this stage would not last forever. She is now at uni and is a confident young lady.
Another thing you could try is first try sitting by the cot and singing to him and rubbing his back and gradually over the days move further away from the cot so that eventually you are out of the room. This will take time but many mums have had success with this and it means that he is not getting himself wound and up and you are calm as well as you are not leaving him to cry. He will be reassured that you are there. I wish you good luck. Take care

whoop I have thought about it being his molars. And have dosed him a couple of times, but not sure if it has helped. I have looked at his mouth as he has the last 4 to come, but they are there under the skin at the top but no signs of coming through and at the bottom I can't even see them there, nothing to indicate any teeth underneath! But it is definitely a possibility as I often have mistaken teething as being a pain in the backside.

I do the moving away from the room la'ing, that slow retreat, nothing works as he just wants to get out until he is so exhausted he lets me stroke his hair until sleep.

Last two nights have been better. I re-organised his somewhat messy room, changed the direction of his cot (not sure why, always felt like it faced the 'wrong way'), and re-ordered his toyboxes/bookcase.

And I have done something else differently. I have consistently offered him milk with bedtime routine, and with him to bed. Has never really done this before, never really wanted milk but more recently has been wanting milk, so he has been having it in a sippy cup. Today, he drank about 8oz of it by the time he went to bed, so maybe he has been hungry?

He went to sleep straight away without even the 5 mins moaning/crying on last couple nights and slept to 5am ish (5:20am once, bit earlier than 5 the other).

If I can get through this middle of the night waking, then I will find the strength to tackle the 5am starts.

Hello, I'm glad you're doing a little better. I hope my post helps give you hope/ideas. I will try to describe in practical terms what I have just done with my DS.

My DS is 2 in a month's time and has been an very early riser for at least 6 months. In that time we would routinely have at least 1-2 wake ups where we would give a quick cuddle and place him back in the cot. However the last few months have been worse than ever with frequent wake ups where rather than a quick cuddle he will attempt to hold you hostage in his room for hours on end, screaming when you put him back or going back to bed only to call again a short while later. Why didn't anyone tell me I would get even less sleep in the second year than I did in the first?!

I thought about trying controlled crying but I didn't think it would work knowing my DS's personality so I tried the Baby Whisperer's technique of pick up/put down. I had tried and failed with this twice in the first year (he was a terrible teether) but thought it was worth another bash before he got too heavy.

Boy am I glad I did it! I kept his bed time routine the same - like your son, my DS would go down well. Then I started on the first wake up which was about 2140. I spent over an hour doing PUPD and I was generous with my pick up cuddles/kisses (after all this is a boy used to being spoiled with cuddle) but put down wake after a min or two. At first he shot back up straight away but eventually I shush/patted him down and sat beside the cot before gradually withdrawing. I had to go back several times as I withdrew to start again with the PUPD/shush/pat routine. Throughout I would only repeat my 3 catch phrases and wouldn't directly address any demands. Mine were "shh - lay down it's sleep time", shh - it's sleep time (for grizzling while already laying down) and "shh. Mummy/daddy's here if you need us".

Within a week night time wake ups are at a minimum and the effort is so much smaller now - me or DH just go in and replace dummy, say appropriate catch phrase, do a quick PUPD or shush/pat and leave. We are out of the room in under a minute.

Early morning I am tacking differently and success is slower. At 430 or 5am if I can't get out of the room as said above, I shush him down until he is laying down and then sit beside the cot until he will not lay down any more. That's not a great description but that is really all I do. My idea is that if I can keep him quiet/dozing he will eventually integrate this into his night time sleep. I have nothing to lose here anyway as I find this preferable to starting my day at this time. I had him sleeping to 545/6am - so it WAS working but this past weekend at my inlaw's house has seen 5am starts return. Ho hum. Back to square one :-(

Overall I am happy having started this 2 weeks ago with how well he responded especially as he has been sick in that time.

I really hope this helps. I'm so sorry it's so long but I thought my early success with PUPD might cheer you.

earlier bed time? earlier nap?
I sit on the floor in his bed room ignoring him if he is screaming and shouting. If he is just moaning and whinging I stand outside the bedroom door(stair gate on door) and shush him and tell him to close his eyes and go to sleep.
DS3 will be 2 in Feb and was a reasonably good sleep, but has been horrendous the past few months.
I have finally worked out he was teething molars and incisors and also stopped napping twice a day all at the same time. He was being woken by his teeth was over tired due to less nap and just didn't know how to go back to sleep. The telling him to close his eyes thing was a revelation and we play games in the daytime about pretednding to go to sleep and snoring like daddy!!!!.

Controlled crying and PUPD just didn't work i think he is too old. The above seem to be doing the trick. A small dose of nurofen does the trick if his mouth is sore and there are now no screaming abdabs in the middle of the night from him or me.
HTH

oh i might try the close your eyes bit. He likes playing games now. I often get him to settle if he is over-excited after a party by saying who is asleep - he says 'fire sam leepies?' and I say 'yes, fireman sam is asleep' 'daddy leepies?' etc etc while stroking his face, calms him down. Maybe I will try it at night, but it is so much harder when he is screaming and bouncing like an imp.

I was thinking about Wake to Sleep. He does not wake ready to start the day at 5am. On some occasions (becoming rarer) he will settle back to sleep with me. I wondered if waking him at 4:15 would help the early morning rising? I guess the nighttime wakings may well be teeth as there just seems no apparant reason for it other than him being a consistently terrible sleeper from birth!

oh posted to soon!

his naps are all over the place. for many reasons, not excluding DH's shift patterns/my work patterns/childcare patterns often clashing, as well as his nap moving from lunch time to mid morning more often than not, but also falling asleep in his dinner and fighting it til afternoon.

Glad things are a little better. As far as the teeth go, for DD it seems to be the bit before they break through the gum which is the most painful and the most disruptive. I think it's because everything's shifting around in her jaw, making way for the new ones. This seems to really disturb her sleep. When they're actually coming through the gum, she puts her hand in her mouth and tells me they hurt. Before that point I think she finds it very hard to pinpoint the pain.

It sounds like you're feeling more positive though, and that's half the battle: PMA!

Wake him up at 4.15am?? God, no..I wouldn't. I think it's far more likely that he's overtired and not getting into a deep enough sleep. You don't want to interrupt his sleep any further.
I think the success you had at getting him down at bedtime is much more the way to go and if I were you I'd try putting him down earlier than you think you should for a couple of weeks, especially if he's not napping well. Put him to bed really early for a week and even if he takes an hour to settle, it's still an early bedtime for him. We did this with DS and it seemed to have no effect for a while, but after a week or two he was sleeping better...like he needed to bank some sleep and the more sleep he got the more rested he became, the easier he got to put to bed and the less he got up in the night. Sleep begets sleep.
Now just need to get a grip with my 6 mo DD who wakes hourly
Good luck Pavlov...it's shit this sleep deprivation, isn't it?

This always seems like completely contradictory advice compared to the usual "sleep begets sleep" mantra, but here's what worked with my freaky children... Maybe worth a try?

Ds slept through at 7 months but woke progressively earlier and earlier. Tried all sorts of things. When he hit 4:15am (going to sleep about 7:30pm) at about 20 months I cut out his nap altogether. If he did fall asleep in car etc I woke him asap (which he was usually very grumpy about). Voila, he started sleeping until 6ish. Finally slept beyond 6ish after starting school.

Dd has been a terrible sleeper, often waking for hours in the night for a chat or a scream depending on teeth situation. When all teeth bar last molars were through at 19months I cut out her nap altogether (as above). Voila, she slept through the night. Until molars appeared - she struggles with teething and calpol etc makes no difference.

Conclusion - my children need virtually no sleep (curses).

Huge sympathies though as dd is 2 and still wakes a lot when she is even a little bit ill so at this time of year I don't get much sleep! It is horrible.

Maybe should add I think both of them would ideally have slept for 2 hours in the afternoon and gone to bed about 11pm, but this emphatically did not work for me...

leige I have come to the conclusion that DS at least needs less sleep that other children. In fact so does DD. She dropped her naps early of her own accord and always happily slept on 11 hours, since 2.

DS has never really slept loads. He dropped his second naps months and months and months ago and he often goes without a nap now, not through out choice but him refusing to sleep. Although yesterday he napped 3 hours in total so I am reluctant to accept he does not need a daily nap (although I do get that 3 hours is unusual for most children!).

Well, DH is so reluctant to try 6pm bedtime as it messes up our entire routine and will be almost impossible to stick to due to our work commitments that we are going to try Wake to Sleep. I say 'going to' - tried it this morning at 4:15am and I was too afraid to wake him to semi-consciousness! I woke him enough that he scratched his face and thought 'that is enough' but no. 5:15am on the nose. Awake. However, what he did do, which he won't in our bed, is go back to sleep with me on the sofa until 7:30am!!! wow. I won't expect that again.

(So, for some reason, he slept 3 hours nap yesterday, plus two additional hours this morning, god knows why)

I have to say I think you're mad with wake to sleep! 6pm sounds very early for bedtime, what time does he go to bed now?

DH and I had a heart to heart about it all today as I feel so stuck in limbo not knowing when and if I am ever going to sleep well again.

So, I am going to change my perspective, as someone (already) said earlier on the thread, if I think that 5:15am is the wake up time, and accept it, I will manage it better rather than desperately hoping for it to be 6am when he wakes and being bitterly disappointed when it is not. I am waiting for it to change, and realistically it could be a long time before this happens.

So, we have agreed. I will do 5:15am starts every day and go to bed 10pm (7.15hrs sleep) I will on the days he is working late night, go to bed earlier (8-9pm), if I feel I need to. One day a week DH will find a way to give me a lie-in til 10am, where he actually gets up, rather than moans about the time or not getting up and coming down after an hour or so and sending me to bed. I want a proper hardly wake up then back to sleep lie-in.

And in the mean time, DH would like to try putting the kids to bed later, not earlier. DD used to go to bed at 8pm and wake at 7am ish. This changed when she was 4 and went to school and was exhausted. So, maybe this is the same for DS, maybe he wants later nights. This is DHs theory and we have tried all mine and they are not working so it is his turn.

If I know that I should expect an early morning, but continue to try to find a solution to change it longer term as well, I think I can cope. What I can't cope is, wanting it to change but it not, wanting DH to help but him not, and feeling like I have absolutely no life as I am going to bed so early. Doing 10pm will give me a chance of some time to me occasionally.

I'm with your dh (as far as my own kids are concerned anyway). 8pm is plenty early enough for them, if they were asleep by 7 dd would be awake at 5ish. You definitely need a proper lie in as well when you are so sleep deprived so I hope your dh sticks to it! "Find a way" sounds like it is going to be terribly difficult - surely all you do is pick a day when neither of you are working (or at least not working in the morning), then he just gets up when your ds wakes up, takes him downstairs and feeds/plays with him - simple!

Good luck, really hope things get better for you soon.

leige I say find a way because DH is working shifts and unfortunately his employers are slack in that he does not get his rota for say, next week, til tomorrow. And they have this habit so far of giving him late shifts (home by 12:30-1am), or 8am starts. Or, his day off is a day I am working (he can work any day out of 7, no set days off atm), so that is why we say find a way - his next day off that I also have off is sunday, but he won't be home til 12:30am-1am and his job is physically hard work, so it would unfair for him to then get up at 5:15am if he is then rota'd for another 5 days without a break.

We will make it work, and I am happy to give it a go with the later nights, DH thinks it will work so I am prepared to listen to him now.

I think that sounds sensible, accept what you cannot change and all that. You might as well try a later bedtime as well if earlier isn't working and it worked with your DD.
You could try a groclock with sticker rewards for staying in bed. DS is older at 3 but it worked (slowly) for us. Set it first really early so he gets a sticker by accident so he knows what the prize is and then a little later gradually. It really helped reinforce the idea of there being a time to sleep and a time to wake. We actually give a sticker and a little present (a rubber or a ballon or a novelty pencil) for each time he stays in bed til the groclock sun comes up and then once he's done it 5 times (started with 3 times, gradually extending) we did something he loves i.e went on a bus ride one afternoon. Took ages, but that combined with an earlier bedtime seems to have somehow reinforced a routine around sleep that now means he v rarely wakes and sleeps 8.30pm to 7am. I'm not really sure how it worked, but it did.
good luck xxx

Oh no that does sound tricky. We are very lucky to both have normal weekends Sat/Sun, so we take it in turns to have a lie in!